🇨🇦⚜️ polisci prof @mcgillu, Director Jean Monnet Centre Montreal; Rule of law, anticorruption, democracy; Book on Ru-Ukraine War: https://xitter.twitterapi.xyz/t.co/8ZtQUyWPFG
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Joined May 2013
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Our book isn't straightforwardly about "war and peace", but about the regime and identity divergence between Ru and Ukraine, which Ru refuses to accept. We'll take the "hot new releases" label, though! Thanks, Amazon. @OxanaShevel @politybooks
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
So few really understand the nature of the US security guarantee to Europe during the CW. It was not Article 5 that mattered it was hundreds of thousands of US troops stationed in Europe backed up by the 6th fleet and American theater and strategic nuclear forces that provided the security guarantee. There is no appetite for that type of commitment today making these paper “NATO-like guarantees” worthless.
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
The talks in Abu Dhabi have ended. A few observations.
The fundamental obstacle to ending this war is that neither belligerent currently sees an available peace settlement that would secure its essential interests at a lower cost than continuing to fight. Negotiations can arrange prisoner exchanges and address other practical questions. But they cannot manufacture a political basis for peace where none yet exists.
For Putin, ending the war with a “victory” reduced to conquering the Donbas would create an enormous problem of historical judgment. Around 1.5 million Russian casualties, killed and wounded, to acquire another devastated stretch of Ukraine? Future generations of Russians might remember Putin as the opposite of a strategic genius: the ruler who squandered his country’s people, resources and international position for gains grotesquely disproportionate to their cost.
This helps explain Moscow’s determination to turn negotiations about its war against Ukraine into negotiations about a “new European security architecture.” Russia needs a prize larger than the Donbas. Weakening NATO, pushing the Americans out of Europe and acquiring a veto over its neighbours’ sovereign choices would provide one.
The historical precedent is clear. At the Berlin Conference in February 1954, Molotov proposed a European collective security system that would have displaced the Western alliances and relegated the United States to “observer” status. Today’s vocabulary is different; the strategic ambition is familiar. If war against Ukraine could deliver the displacement of American power from Europe, the Kremlin could present it as a historic success and draw dangerous conclusions about what further wars might achieve.
For Ukraine, the calculation runs in the opposite direction. However appalling the costs of resistance, capitulation could still cost more. What is at stake is the survival of an independent state and the continued existence of Ukrainians as a distinct political nation.
Putin’s account of Ukrainian history treats a separate Ukrainian identity as something cultivated by Russia’s enemies, including Polish elites and Austrian authorities. The dangerous implication is that what was supposedly constructed can be dismantled. Deportation, killing and forced Russification become instruments for undoing a nation whose independent existence the aggressor refuses to accept. From Kyiv’s perspective, surrender would therefore offer no reliable escape from violence. It could simply remove the means of resisting it.
Europe already has a security order worth defending. Its principles include sovereignty, territorial integrity and the freedom to choose alliances. Russia’s violation of those principles is a reason to enforce them, not to replace them with arrangements requiring Russian permission.
Nor does the United States have a compelling national interest in surrendering its position in Europe to Russia. Its European presence sustains American influence, military reach and alliances. Whatever commercial opportunities Trump, Witkoff or Kushner may see in an accommodation with Moscow, those opportunities do not establish that such a retreat would benefit America. A deal attractive to individual negotiators is not necessarily a strategic bargain for their country.
That is the underlying impasse. Moscow wants a peace that converts aggression into a wider strategic victory. Ukraine needs a peace that preserves its ability to survive. Europe cannot accept Russian control over European security, and America has no sound strategic reason to facilitate it.
Until those calculations change, the war is likely to continue. Calling the process a negotiation does not make the interests compatible. Without that compatibility, we will keep getting diplomatic choreography and, around it, this ridiculous circus.
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
Aan het Kremlin-trollenleger:
Lavrov wijst op 10 november 2026 het Europese voorstel voor een staakt-het-vuren af, omdat Rusland eerst afspraken wil maken over de Europese veiligheidsarchitectuur.
En dan nog durven jullie vol te houden dat Europa niet wil onderhandelen?
Hoe zit het dan met dat verhaal dat Rusland alleen de Russischtaligen wil beschermen en de nazi's in Oekraïne wil bestrijden? Dat rookgordijn begint inmiddels behoorlijk doorzichtig te worden.
De werkelijkheid is dat Rusland de NAVO fors wil terugdringen, zodat het meer ruimte krijgt om zijn eigen imperialistische ambities na te jagen.
Wie serieus denkt dat Rusland na Oekraïne wel zal stoppen, moet toch eens wakker worden. Het begon niet met de Krim en het stopte niet na de annexatie ervan. En nu zou Oekraïne plotseling het eindstation zijn?
Dat geloven is geen vredespolitiek. Dat is wegkijken van de geopolitieke werkelijkheid en kritiekloos napraten wat het Kremlin voorschotelt.
Stop met Rusland als vredesduif af te schilderen en Europa als oorlogshitser. Wie vrede predikt, moet óók de agressor durven aanspreken.
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
Je ne voterai pas pour un homme qui veut sortir de l'OTAN.Un homme qui souhaite la destruction de l'Ukraine. Un homme qui veut se rapprocher de la Chine et la Russie. Je fais partie de la majorité silencieuse
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
Zelensky says Starshield speed throttling at 160 km/h has resumed, with no explanation from Elon Musk or the Pentagon, and has already resulted in failures to intercept Russian drones.
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
L’Ukraine n’avait aucune chance de rejoindre l’OTAN et la Russie le savait. D’ailleurs, elle n’utilise même plus cet argument pour justifier son agression.
French Presidential Candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon:
We had warned them back in 2008 when they began saying they would bring Ukraine and Georgia into NATO.
We told them: "If you do that, you will have war." And they got war.
But we were no longer allowed to say that, because otherwise you become an agent of Putin.
And Ishchenko just told me that thinking Russia wants to control Poland and Hungary is outlandish
Russia’s chief Ukraine negotiator proposes a “new, modern Yalta”as the basis for European security. That’s not actually a persuasive argument as “Yalta” has come to mean a Great Power division of other countries. 1/2
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Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
Russia’s chief Ukraine negotiator proposes a “new, modern Yalta”as the basis for European security. That’s not actually a persuasive argument as “Yalta” has come to mean a Great Power division of other countries. 1/2
Here is the unedited translation of what Russia’s chief negotiator Vladimir Medinsky told Russian state TV today.
Q: A significant part of the territory of Kharkiv Oblast and other regions is currently under Russian control. Were exchanges of these territories discussed during the negotiations, and for which territories?
Medinsky: The topic of possible territorial exchanges is periodically floated by various sides. Let me remind you of the history. After Ukraine's incursion into Kursk Oblast, a decision was made — the president has spoken about this more than once — to create a security zone along the border with the Russian Federation.
This zone is now quite substantial. It is expanding, and it will continue to expand. I don't see any possibility of exchanging these territories.
And again, as our leader so vividly put it, wherever the foot of our Russian soldier has stepped, that is ours.
As the entire history of Russia has shown, every time we have shown a willingness to make concessions, to agree to compromises that are disadvantageous to us, to demonstrate peaceful intentions and a willingness to yield — every time we have taken steps towards our opponents to avoid certain hardships, as we thought, the result has been that we have ended up with even greater hardships.
As the saying goes, we get both war and disgrace.
But whenever Russia has demonstrated firmness and confidence in its own strength, as a result, all hardships have been overcome, and a time of lasting peace, tranquillity and development has come, both for us and for our neighbours.
Therefore, wherever the Russian flag has been raised, it must not be lowered.
The task is something else, and we talked about this today. The task is to create a system of comprehensive security in Europe that will become a new, modern Yalta and Potsdam. One that will be imbued with the spirit of Helsinki in 1975, that will reflect new, contemporary realities, and that will be fair.
If we manage to create such a security system, then we will ensure peace in Europe for decades, perhaps even centuries. That is our main task.
Q: At the very beginning of the meeting, you said some very cautious and important words: that we would try to move closer to achieving peace. Have you moved closer?
Medinsky: I think so, yes, but right now a great deal depends on all participants in the process. A lot depends on Ukraine, on the position of the United States, and on whether Europe comes to its senses.
In any case, all the objectives we have set ourselves will be achieved.
Q: Are you satisfied for now?
Medinsky: Only when we win and sign a peace agreement on our terms.
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
Zelenskyy: "We are again seeing problems with Starshield. ... We are trying to get details from the American side, but some things are already clear. If someone in America is making decisions that treat Ukrainian territory as if it is not Ukrainian, then this tells us where things are going."
Mearsheimer told a room full of political scientists that his RA didnt find evidence of Russia disrespecting Ukrainian sovereignty.
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
Ukraine is winning this war. With American and Allied support, Ukraine can win a lasting victory for freedom.
Why Supporting Ukraine Is An Investment In Freedom, Not Charity: My Latest Op-ed in Today’s @realDailyWire 🇺🇸🇺🇦
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
Viele, die von Frieden reden, finden immer wieder neue Begründungen, warum Putin Krieg führen darf.
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
United, Europe stands. Divided, it falls.
Moscow has now spelled it out. Alexey Drobinin, a senior Russian Foreign Ministry official, said that Russia could conclude nonaggression pacts with individual NATO member states and offer them “additional individual security guarantees.” At the same time, Russia’s chief negotiator Vladimir Medinsky called a new European security framework the central topic of the talks in Abu Dhabi.
Moscow put its December 2021 demands back on the table.
Europe opened this door itself. By agreeing to discuss a new “security architecture” with Moscow, it agreed to negotiate the non-negotiable: its own collective defence. The Kremlin’s answer is to deal with each European country alone, face to face with Russia.
Every European country that faces Russia one-on-one will lose. Inevitably. This applies to the nuclear powers too: neither Britain nor France can stand alone against Russia’s pressure. Europe can stand only united, only together. Countries that pursue individual pacts with Moscow will end up as Russian satellites.
Time to Win the War describes where this leads:
“Collective defence would give way to individual attempts at survival. Every government that tried to secure itself separately would make Article 5 less credible for everyone else, which in turn would push more governments towards separate arrangements with Moscow or Beijing. European defence could collapse politically without Russia having to defeat NATO forces on the battlefield.”
An “individual security guarantee” from Moscow is worth exactly as much as the one Russia gave Ukraine in Budapest in 1994. Any European government tempted by such an offer should remember how that ended.
Link in the first comment.
Spot on. Every word.
We keep hearing again that Russia supposedly needs security guarantees. Even though no one has attacked Russia for many decades. Since the Second World War, Moscow has not gone through even one decade without starting a war or using military force against another country.
So when the Russians now talk about a security architecture for themselves, or about security guarantees for Russia – they are hardly talking about real security. And peace.
What they really want – is to freely interfere in the affairs of other countries, and to use force whenever they want, and to make sure that no one can support liberty inside Russia because Putin wants to keep his personal power forever and pass on his imperialist and, in many ways, simply fascist views to the next generations.
From a speech at the Danish Folketing. (3/3)
Optimistic but plausible prediction.
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
and they still “don’t know” who did it
⚡️ BREAKING: A 161 km/h speed restriction is disrupting Starshield operations across the front line and temporarily occupied territories, Zelenskyy says.
He warned that the limits prevent air defense systems from reaching the speeds needed to intercept Russian jet-powered drones, resulting in direct hits as Kyiv works to clarify the situation with the US.
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
Tous les pays européens sont clairs sur le fait qu'ils se réarment car la Russie a envahi l'Ukraine et menace le reste de notre continent. Les militants de Mélenchon vont encore venir nous expliquer qu'il est le seul à vouloir la paix et que nous sommes d'affreux bellicistes.
🔴 🗣11-Novembre : “Je n’accepte pas l’idée que qui que ce soit en Europe veuille construire la plus grande armée conventionnelle. Il faut poser la question à nos voisins : ‘À qui comptez-vous faire la guerre ?’“, déclare Jean-Luc Mélenchon, candidat LFI à la présidentielle.
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
M. Mélenchon oublie que la plus grande armée conventionnelle en Europe est l'armée russe, qui fait la guerre à plusieurs pays. Elle occupe une partie de l'Ukraine, de la Géorgie et de la Moldavie, et tente depuis 2014 (sans succès) d'envahir l'Ukraine.
globalmilitary.net/rankings/count…
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
This. It's amazing that Putin's maximalist demands are taken seriously in 2026, when he has failed, after 500,000 dead Russian soldiers, to conquer a single big Ukrainian city in 4 years. And, delusional, still demands the same absurd things he demanded in 2021.
I can at least understand why, back in December 2021, when Russia issued the West an ultimatum so blatantly absurd and impossible to meet as demanding that NATO “roll back to its 1997 borders,” everyone was clutching their pearls and gasping in horror.
But come on. In 2022, Putin suffers a crushing defeat at Kyiv, retreats, and abandons the #1 objective of his blitzkrieg. And then, as if nothing had happened, he shows up at the “peace negotiations” in Istanbul demanding outrageously absurd and impossible conditions, including Ukraine's near-total disarmament and a Russian veto over any Western assistance in the event of another invasion.
As if his troops were feasting in Uzhhorod and Lviv instead of having been turned to ashes outside Hostomel and Chernihiv.
Fast-forward almost five years.
He's suffered defeats outside Kharkiv, in Kherson, in Kupiansk, and near Lyman. He's seen Ukrainian troops invade and occupy Russian territory. He's practically lost his Black Sea Fleet. He's lost some 500,000 soldiers killed alone. He's barely managed to change a front line that has remained largely frozen since 2022.
His oil refineries, ports, airfields, and military factories are burning across a vast stretch of Russia, from St. Petersburg to Omsk. He still can't defeat Ukraine even in Donbas, even with the president of the United States in his pocket.
And yet he keeps demanding Ukraine's complete capitulation, the surrender of territory without a fight, the dismantling of Ukraine's defenses. And again and again, he effectively demands that NATO be rolled back and that the entire former Warsaw Pact territory in Europe be handed over to him.
As if he were Stalin in 1952.
And the reason isn't just that Putin is an insane gambler who doesn't know when to stop or recognize the limits of what he can realistically demand.
It's also that, year after year, the free world has repeatedly and spectacularly demonstrated what Putin clearly interprets as weakness, fear, and an unwillingness to stand up for itself.
And therefore, as an invitation to escalate even further, to make ever more outrageous demands, and to engage in ever more brazen blackmail, despite the obvious mismatch between his megalomaniac ambitions, his rhetoric, and his actual results on the ground.
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
Well said. Russia hasn´t achieved its goals until know. It sustained heavy losses, is bombarded on a daily basis and yet somehow people think it´s totally normal for Russia to stick to its absurd demands from 2021.
But obviously that´s "Geopolitics" and "Realism."
Maria Popova 🇨🇦 retweeted
What Russia actually wants are impunity guarantees. A violent repeat offender seeking assurances that his victims will not be able to defend themselves. These brazen demands are hardly new. Kushner/Witkoff parroting these old Russian imperialist fantasies is an embarrassment.
We keep hearing again that Russia supposedly needs security guarantees. Even though no one has attacked Russia for many decades. Since the Second World War, Moscow has not gone through even one decade without starting a war or using military force against another country.
So when the Russians now talk about a security architecture for themselves, or about security guarantees for Russia – they are hardly talking about real security. And peace.
What they really want – is to freely interfere in the affairs of other countries, and to use force whenever they want, and to make sure that no one can support liberty inside Russia because Putin wants to keep his personal power forever and pass on his imperialist and, in many ways, simply fascist views to the next generations.
From a speech at the Danish Folketing. (3/3)